In recent years, automobiles that use electric motors as power sources, such as electric automobiles and hybrid cars, are widely used. Batteries that supply electricity to the electric motors are mounted on the automobiles.
For methods of charging the batteries, there are a plurality of systems according to the types of the batteries and the automobiles. For example, many hybrid cars use power of engines to operate generators to generate electricity to charge the batteries. In the electric automobiles and some of the hybrid cars (plug-in hybrid cars), cables for charging can be plugged into the vehicles to directly charge the batteries from external power supplies. Therefore, charge connectors for plugging in the cables are installed on the plug-in hybrid cars and the like.
The charge connectors are mainly arranged on outer panels of the vehicles, and many of the charge connectors include double lids to improve the sealing performance. For example, a charging inlet structure described in PTL 1 includes: an opening arranged on an outer panel; a charging inlet (connector connection section) arranged inside of the opening; a charging inlet cap (inner lid section) that covers the connector connection section and that can be opened and closed; and a lid (outer lid section) that covers the opening from the outside and that can be opened and closed. In PTL 1, hinge axes of the inner lid section and the outer lid section are arranged on opposite sides across the connector connection section, and the inner lid section and the outer lid section need to be individually closed. Therefore, it is stated that the inner lid section can be completely closed (forgetting to close the inner lid section can be prevented).